Author: Tom Plate

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating (1991-1996, pictured right) offers a crystal-clear vision of China’s rise in Asia in a deeply thought-provoking interview with Kerry O’Brien, one of Australia’s most respected journalists. The hour-long radio session with the highly informed, forward-thinking Keating, now 72, covers a valuable range of topics, including his first-hand impressions of China’s President Xi Jinping, the titanic power shift in the Asia-Pacific region, the urgent need to recognize China’s legitimate national interests, and the depressingly inept intellectual character of America’s thinking about its 21st century role in Asia. Keating is brilliant, and interviewer O’Brien skillfully...

The following summary (or ‘Abstract’) of an invaluable study titled “…China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign” arises from exemplary research by Xi Lu and Peter L. Lorentzen of the University of California, Berkeley. Their study comes at an especially helpful time: Scholars (not to mention journalists and Western government officials) have been endlessly puzzling over the true nature of the anti-corruption effort on the mainland of China. The question has been whether the effort is more carefully targeted political score-settling or true across-the-board non-partisan corruption control. The conclusion of the Berkeley professors is fascinating and important because it helps illuminate the true...

One of the most popular writers in English living in Southeast Asia is Christopher G. Moore. His ‘Vincent Calvino’ novels in particular crashed one bestselling list in Asia after another. A video on his work, on the ‘dark but rich’ side of Bangkok, and the life of the expat in Thailand has just surfaced. It is highly recommended. Please view:...

TOM PLATE WRITES – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong suffered a scary spell during his deliverance of the annual National Day speech, but after fast work by an emergency team and a brief rest, returned to the microphone to soldier on. And this is very good news indeed. Lee, whose iconic father Lee Kuan Yew founded modern Singapore with his People’s Action Party, deserves considerable credit for keeping the tiny but robust city-state (more populous than Norway but not many other places) on an exceptional trajectory. Singapore remains one of the world’s most accomplished countries with a highly...

America has used so-named drones against enemies abroad (real or misidentified) far more extensively than it has thought through the complex implications of such usage. Now come a mid-course thought-correction, as it were, in the form of a nearly 400-page book that takes on the ethical, political and international law issues of drones from multiple directions. The new book is titled ‘Preventive Force, Drones, Targeted Killing, and the Transformation of Contemporary Warfare’ (New York University Press, 2016). This carefully ordered collection of expert essays was assembled and edited by Loyola Marymount University Profs. Kirsten Fisk and Jennifer M. Ramos,...

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A continuously appearing, student-driven publication of Loyola Marymount University's Asia Media International Center, which is a part of LMU's Department of Asian and Asian American Studies (AAAS), the new AMI retains the former ASIA MEDIA’s scholarly aim while incorporating a contemporary outlook and format. The integration of innovative concepts to the new website serves to re-emphasize its mission: the examination of Asian countries by undergraduate students. This is Asia’s century. As the world’s center of political gravity is inevitably shifting to the East, this site seeks to place its spotlight on Asia as a method of focusing on trends within its society and politics. The mission of the new ASIA MEDIA also aims to help deepen LMU’s overall institutional understanding of – and relationship with – Asia.